Quite loud, as though the person on the other end of the line might be out of breath. Ashley’s mind pictures a horrible host of possibilities; women flash through her head in various states of undress, bosoms out, taut stomachs, lips pressed to the phone, wanting her husband. Stop it, Ashley, she thinks to herself, and she takes another sip of wine and says:
‘Who is this, please?’
No answer. The breathing increases in tempo, and as Ashley listens, she thinks she can hear a sort of rattle, as if the person on the other end of the line is ill, or elderly. Perhaps it really is a wrong number. She is about to speak again when the line goes dead, and at that moment James walks through the door, his briefcase in his hand.
‘You’re so late,’ Ashley says, and he immediately looks guilty. She feels sick. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I’m just working, Ash,’ he tells her, and he comes forward, takes the wine glass and the phone from her hand, puts his arms around her waist. He nuzzles her neck. ‘Mmm, you smell nice. Did I buy you that perfume?’
For a second she tenses, imagining the weight around her stomach, the soft cushion of her skin. She shouldn’t have had the wine. He leans towards her, kisses her quickly on the mouth. She puts her hands to the back of his neck, feels the tiny hairs prickle beneath her fingers.
‘You’re always working, James,’ she says, and she pulls back from him, looks into his eyes. They are grey, flecked with brown around the edges. She loves his eyes. ‘Is everything all right?’
He isn’t meeting her eyes. He runs a hand through his hair, the brown curls spring up beneath his fingers. He looks so like their son when he does this, the gesture makes Ashley’s chest tighten, just a little.
‘Everything’s fine, Ash,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry, I’m really tired. Did Holly go down OK tonight?’
Ashley nods. ‘Yes. But, James—’
‘Can we go to bed? Please?’ He interrupts her, and she swallows. She stares at him, at the bags underneath his eyes, the wrinkles that are forming around his temples.
‘Of course we can,’ she says, and he looks so relieved that she can’t face telling him about the phone calls, not just now. They troop upstairs to where the children are softly snoring. Holly’s bedroom door is ajar, the end of her cot just visible. Ashley tiptoes past, holding her breath, but James forgets and the sound of his shoes on the floorboards cuts through the quiet.
‘James!’
There is a pause. Three, two, one – the sound of Holly’s cry spills into the corridor, as if on cue. As she goes to her daughter, Ashley catches sight of herself in the wall mirror. Her lips are dark red, stained with the wine.
London
Dominic
Dominic sits at his desk in the newsroom, gulps down his slightly burned tasting coffee as he prepares to start writing up his copy. He thinks of Corinne shading her eyes as she stared at Carlington House yesterday, of her small hands running over the derelict white walls. She was thinking about her dad, he knows she was. Richard looms as large in death as he did in life.
As he types up his notes, Dominic grits his teeth, remembering the way Warren leered at Corinne. He probably shouldn’t have brought her along, but he hasn’t wanted to leave her alone much since the doctor called. He pictures her lying in the bath, her eyes shut, the water cold. A shiver goes down his spine and he shakes himself slightly, pushes the thought away. She’ll be all right, he knows she will. This is just a setback.
He works quietly until lunchtime, when a hand comes down, claps him on the shoulder. Andy, the court reporter, is grinning down at him, Cheshire cat-like.
‘Stop slaving away over property stuff, Dom. I want you to meet Erin.’ He gestures to a young-looking blonde girl standing beside him, who is holding her hands behind her back nervously. ‘She started last week, while you were away. Erin, this is Dom.’
Dominic stands and shakes hands with Erin, noticing as he does so that he has a large black ink spot on his thumb, brilliant against the smooth white of his skin.
‘Sorry.’ He laughs, rubs at it with the fingers of his other hand. ‘Comes with the territory, I suppose. Good to meet you!’
Erin smiles back. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Dominic,’ she says. ‘I hope you don’t mind but Andy said you guys were going for lunch together – is it all right if I join you? I’ve only just started and I don’t know the area yet.’
Behind Erin’s back, Andy winks at him and Dominic nods quickly.
‘Sure, of course.’ There’s no point protesting. Erin is Andy’s usual type; he has a big thing for blondes. In the five years that Dominic has known him he has never stayed with a woman for more than six months.
Dominic swings his chair around, pulls his jacket off the seat behind him and shrugs it over his shoulders. The three of them make their way through the newsroom to the lifts.
‘What’ve you been working on this morning, Erin?’ Dominic asks.
‘God, it’s a horrible court case. Mother accused of neglect. Claudia Winters?’
The image immediately flashes into Dominic’s mind: a small woman, dark hair tied back off her neck, hand raised to shield herself from the lights of the media. She has been all over the papers. Extreme neglect leading to infant mortality. He swallows.
‘See, this is exactly why I became a features man!’
‘I know,’ Erin says, ‘It’s not a nice one to start with. In at the deep end!’
They step into the lift together.
‘How you finding it here so far?’ he asks.
‘Good, good, you know, still settling in. Everybody seems friendly.’
‘Oh, yeah? Where have you come from?’
‘Oh, I grew up in Suffolk if you know it, over by the coast.’
‘Bit of a change from Finchley Road,’ Dominic says. ‘Lot less stabbings, I bet, although we’d all be out of a job without them.’
‘Right.’ She nods. ‘I’m living in Tooting now, though, just got a flat.’ She laughs. ‘It’s in serious need of decoration, bit of a shit-hole actually. Tooting seems a bit dodgy so far! Or maybe I just notice it more cos of the job. I’m still getting to grips with it all!’
‘Takes a while,’ Dominic says. ‘You’ll get there!’
They have reached the ground floor; he fumbles for his lanyard in his pocket but Andy dangles his own in front of his eyes.
‘Honestly, mate, what are you like.’ He grins at Erin, opens the door for her and guides her through, his large hand on her back. Dominic rolls his eyes and follows the pair of them out onto the high road. He can already tell what Andy is thinking, almost see the cogs turning in his brain. He never takes long to make his moves.
*
They make their way to the pub on the corner, the Hare and Hound. An abandoned Christmas tree sits outside it, next to a pile of empty beer cans. Pine needles blow along the pavement, dry and brown.
The three of them chat about Andy’s court case. It’s a drug deal; he says that today was the sentencing, he watched a nineteen-year-old girl go down for twenty years. Dominic shivers – he has always hated sentencings, hated seeing the look on people’s faces when the enormity of what they’d done would crash down on them. Always too late, of course. Half the kids he went to school with are behind bars now.
‘I hate sentencings, actually,’ Erin says. ‘So final, aren’t they? Imagine being locked away like that.